Recurrently connected and localized neuronal communities initiate coordinated spontaneous activity in neuronal networks
Fig 6
Ready-to-fire state of the functional communities.
The fCOMs of the simulated networks (n = 10 networks simulations) were perturbed with mild-subthreshold stimuli to test their sensitivity in eliciting NBs (see the Materials and Methods section). (A) Raster plot of the activity (black dots) with overlaid electrical stimuli (red dots). As shown, stimuli can either marginally affect the spontaneous activity (B.1) or evoke an NB (B.2). When an NB is elicited, almost all of the stimulated neurons fire (B.3, eNB) a spike within 50 ms. In contrast, when an NB is not elicited, only a small fraction of stimulated neurons fire a spike. In this case, the neuronal activity is not significantly different between the probed regions. (C) Representation of the spatial arrangement of the fCOMs and reference regions that were probed in this example. Neurons are colour coded according to the strength of the stimulus. Stimuli are delivered to fCOMs I, II, III and IV (c.f. Fig 4A) and to reference regions RI, RII, PII. (D) The perturbation of the fCOMs evokes NBs with a higher probability than the reference sites.